Feb 28, 2019 by Yun Nie

Software as a Service (SaaS) topped with 35 investments accounting for 22% of the entire funds raised during the period. Healthcare and hardware followed at 23 (18%) and 15 (10%) respectively.

Most of the financing rounds remained in early stages as usual (45 Series A and 22 Series B). Acquisitions climbed to 25, fueled by a wave of resource integration in Chinese enterprises.

China’s internet behemoth Alibaba (阿里巴巴), Baidu (百度) and Tencent (腾讯) continued to level up their investments, except for JD.com (京东). Let’s take a look at some of the most vital funding rounds.

Alibaba

On February 19, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba acquired 4.84% stake (203 million) in China International Capital Corporation (中金公司), the country’s first joint venture investment bank, reported itjuzi.com. Alibaba is now the third largest shareholder of China International Capital Corporation.

Alibaba said the partnership will help the duo to improve their products and services by integrating their resources and leveraging advantages in finance, technology and database.

Baidu

On February 20, Chinese leading H5 (HTML5) game development and distribution company Hoodinn.com (蝴蝶互动) completed an undisclosed round of financing from strategic investor Baidu.

On February 20, Tencent Music Entertainment (腾讯音乐娱乐集团) and venture capital firm Trust Bridge Partners (挚信资本) announced strategic investment in douban.fm (豆瓣FM), a popular music platform operated by DNV Music Group (DNV音乐集团). The three companies will cooperatively working on music products and copyright after the funding round, reported itjuzi.com.

On February 23, social app Contacts+, a compound of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Foursquare, landed USD 1 million in a Seed round from Tencent, TriplePoint Capital and TMT Investments, said itjuzi.com. Details of how Contacts+ intends to use the proceeds were not disclosed.

Chinese tech new website 36kr.com (36氪) reported the funds will be used for branching into news businesses like automobile sale, as well as expanding into the Chinese mainland, Southeastern Asian and Indian markets.

Check out details in the chart below.

Yun Nie

Yun Nie is a New York-based tech reporter. She focuses on India-China financial market, global IT giants and technology-centric market trends. She can be reached at Yunnie@thepassage.cc.